


Impressions

by acestriker



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: First Impressions, First Meetings, Friendship, Galaxy Garrison, Gen, M/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Series, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-09 06:12:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12270525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acestriker/pseuds/acestriker
Summary: Matt Holt hates Shiro from the first moment he sees him, and slowly builds increasingly negative opinions of him.Shiro proves every single one of them wrong.





	Impressions

The first time Matt saw Shiro was during physical evaluations. He’d never particularly enjoyed physical activity, always having to force himself to do even the bare minimum, and while he trained enough that he could pass the evaluation without too much hassle, he was solidly on the lower end of what the Garrison considered “average” for new cadets. You could already see little divisions between the students, between people who were struggling, and between people who weren’t even breaking a sweat, but it seemed the group he’d been called in with was particularly competitive, because at some point, a sparring competition had broken out. Matt looked on in disgust as a handful of guys tried to beat each other up, then subsequently tried to gang up on the victor, who apparently still had enough energy to take them all out a second time. And apparently, they were all _thrilled_ to be defeated by the same guy twice.

“Dude! You’re freaking awesome!” one of them shouted. “What’s your name?”

The guy who had won was on the taller side, muscular with broad shoulders, and had a slightly cocky grin that oozed confidence. “Shirogane,” he answered. “Shiro’s fine, though.”

“You’ve _got_ to come to the party tonight, man. It’s gonna have booze and chicks and _everything_ , plus it’s off campus and class hasn’t started, so there’s nothing they can do about it!”

That was about the time Matt stopped listening, feeling a little ball of anger in the pit of his stomach. …. Stupid meatheads. He knew this type all too well from high school; all they cared about was sports and drinking and girls and always thought they could push anyone with any semblance of a brain around. How many times had he been beat up or had his lunch money stolen by idiots like this? The only saving grace here was that he already knew from his father that the Garrison didn’t work like that, so these guys were going to be in for a real shocker when they learned they weren’t going to be able to get away with not caring about schoolwork anymore. Ultimately, real skills and knowledge were preferred over a bunch of flashy muscle. He might not end up popular—he was never popular—but he still had the edge over these rocks for brains party animals.

  
  


The second time he saw Shiro was on the first day of class, after they’d been assigned to the same homeroom. Just as it was ended, they were both called up to front.

“You’ll both need to go the faculty offices instead your last period class,” the professor told them. “There was a problem regarding crew assignments.”

Shiro looked to him in question, and Matt just shrugged. He knew as little as he did.

He saw him later that day in his tactical class, and wondered if his glasses needed adjustment. He had a difficult time believing _this_ guy had made it into such an advanced class. The professor gave a preliminary test even though it was only the first day, and Matt was a little vindicated as Shiro was the first to finish. ... He probably half-assed his way through or made up answers on the spot instead of trying. Matt knew it wasn’t _his_ problem, but he couldn’t help but spitefully hope he got a bad grade on it. Maybe it’d be a wake-up call.

  
  


The third time was after he tried to go to faculty offices. He’d been met with an apology and was told they weren’t ready yet, so please come back tomorrow, which left him with an unepected free period. He decided to go see if his dad was busy, and to his surprise, there was that guy again. What did he want with his dad...? Dad wasn’t even an instructor.

He decided to eavesdrop from the doorway.

“... I was hoping I could get special permission, sir,” Shiro was saying.

“Hmm...” Commander Holt thought out loud. “You realize it’s reserved for third years? You may not be able to keep up.”

“I don’t think that will be a problem, sir.”

“Well, you’re certainly full of confidence. ... Alright, I’ll allow it. Dismissed, cadet.”

“Thank you, sir.” Shiro gave a salute and turned on his heel to leave with a smile, not even noticing Matt on his way out. Typical.“What was that about?” Matt asked, entering his father’s office.

“Oh, just a young cadet eager to prove himself,” Commander Holt answered. “Reminds me a little of you, actually.”

“Me?” Matt asked in surprise. Some asshole jock? That made him a little more angry than his father knew, but he knew that he meant well by it, to he did his best to keep his tone civil. “... Somehow I doubt we have anything in common.”

“Now, Matt, I taught you better than to judge people before you get to know them,” Commander Holt scolded. “Why aren’t you in class?”

“I guess there’s some kind of assignment problem, so I don’t even have a crew yet. They’re supposed to figure it out tomorrow.”

“... I see. Tell me about your first day, then.”

Matt got so caught up in conversation about his science classes that he forgot how annoyed he was to be compared to Shiro.

  
  


When he finally met Shiro, it was in a meeting in the faculty offices.

“We had an odd number of applicants this year,” an administrative officer was explaining. “And frankly, we don't have any engineers capable of matching your skill sets. You have two options: work together in a crew of two and learn to split mechanical duties, or we can assign to you different teams, but you'd get less simulation time.”

Matt could feel his stomach fall. Neither of those sounded like particularly good options. If they worked together, he'd have juggle two different positions and he'd have to work with this guy, possibly having to pick up for his slack. If he got put in another crew as a fourth member, he'd barely even get to _do_ anything, and how was he supposed to get ahead like that?

“Isn't having things too easy going to hurt us for next year?” Shiro thought aloud. “I think having more to learn more can only help us in the long-run. What do you think?” he asked Matt. “We should make the decision together. I don't want to force you to do anything you don't want to.”

… He'd work with him as part of a two person crew? Honestly, Matt had been half expecting him to take one look at him and say _no way,_ but Shiro was being surprisingly cooperative about this. He still had some reservations about this, though…. He could only imagine how bad the workload would be if Shiro didn't end up holding his side down. “That assumes we’d actually work well together,” he pointed out. “What if we don't?”

“Fair enough,” Shiro responded, pausing to think about it. “Would it make you feel better if we had a probationary period?” he asked, and turned to the administrator. “Assuming that's possible.”

“It's a reasonable accommodation. We'll allow it,” she responded.

Hmm….. It _was_ a reasonable accommodation. Problem was, Shiro was talking like he wasn't worried about this at all, which made Matt all the more convinced that he was planning on putting all of the work on him anyway. Then again, even if he got put in a crew of four, there'd be other problems to deal with… A probation period might have been the best solution after all. He supposed this guy must have at least a little sense to him.

“How long do we have to decide?” he asked.

“One week,” the officer responded. “Based on your respective skill levels, you'll have Commander Iverson for the simulators. The main problem here is the difference in your combat scores. Cadet Shirogane. If you do choose to work with Cadet Holt, we're going to have to drop your self defense classes a couple levels so you can still work together for team exercises. Will that be a problem?”

Shiro shrugged. “Not really. It might even be a good experience. It takes more discipline to know how to hold your punches effectively.”

That was a surprising answer from some macho tough guy. Matt wondered if Shiro really meant what he'd said, or if he just found the idea of being in a class full of a bunch of people weaker than him fun or something, and if he was one of _those_ guys, class was going to be hell for a little while. But… he guessed he'd just have to wait and see what happened. If it actually did turn out to be awful, he could always back out of it at the end of the week. Things would probably be fine. Hopefully.

In the end, they agreed to try it, and were told to report to their first simulator class the next day, which meant they were going to have a surprise free period for the second day in a row. … Now what? Did he just leave? Dad would get mad if he visited him in his office a second day in a row. He may have been his father, but the Garrison _did_ tend to frown up fraternizing.

“Wanna hit the library?” Shiro suggested. “Might as well get a start on homework while we have the free time, and we'll probably want to get to know each other a little better before we jump into the simulator tomorrow.”

Resistant as Matt was to get to know this guy, he did have a point there, so he ended up nodding. “By the way, which class is Iverson? I want to have a good idea of what to look into before class tomorrow,” he asked.

“Advanced. I'm fighter class,” Shiro responded.

“.... Oh.” Huh. Did that mean this guy was actually a decent pilot? There was no way they'd let them form such a small team in a class like that if he wasn't.

“You seem surprised.”

“I mean, kind of? I'm in high level classes, but I didn't think they'd let us in the advanced sim with only two people,” Matt thought out loud.

Shiro didn't seem too bothered by it, though. “That means they think we can handle it. We'll just have to prove them right.”

Matt blinked. That was a good attitude, actually. Better than his. He kind of wondered how Shiro was so optimistic about all of this. Either he was confident, or not taking things seriously enough, and it was hard to tell which. Around then, they reached the library, and settled into a table in the back.

“... Can I ask you something?” Matt asked as he pulled his homework from his bag. “Why you'd agree to this so quickly?” Because frankly, he still needed some convincing, and maybe getting a better idea of Shiro’s motives would help him know what he was in for.

“Well, a couple reasons,” Shiro answered. “I'd rather not get less simulator time, and… I don't want you take this the wrong way, but… You're Commander Holt's son, right?”

“..... Um, yeah,” Matt answered, feeling himself deflating. Oh, god. This guy was one of the ones that wanted an easy route to a high-ranking officer so he wouldn't have to work as much, wasn't he? And he might even start harassing him when that didn't happen. Could this get _any_ worse?

“I know that sounds pretty bad, but it's just that he mentioned you when I was talking to him yesterday,” Shiro explained. “He gave a special leadership seminar last night. It was for third years who’re going to be promoted to officers at the end of the school year, but I convinced him to let me sit in on it, and I'm glad that I did. Your father seems like an amazing man.”

“He is,” Matt responded, feeling a little dazed. That…. did not take the direction he thought it was going to take, at all. “You seriously sat in on that?” He felt like he was missing something here…. Dad would have never let him do that if he thought it would be too above his level. So what exactly _was_ his level?

“Is that odd?” Shiro asked, scratching the back of his head. “I just thought it would be useful.”

“This might sound kinda weird, but can I see your other classes?” Matt asked him. He seriously needed to figure out what was going on here.

“Concerned I'll hold you back, huh?” Shiro responded, but he didn't sound offended by it. In fact, he was half laughing about it. “Sure, I don't mind.” He dug into his bag and pulled out his schedule, which Matt read over in interest.

These…. were actually pretty tough classes. They clearly had a different interests, but these were not subjects your average meathead would be able to take. Had he… totally misjudged him? Something at the bottom caught his eye, too.

“What the—? How did you manage to get into a better math class than me?” Matt asked in astonishment.

“That kind of surprised me too, to be honest. I've always been good at it, but this class seems like it might be a little much. But since I got into it, I may as well give a shot, right?”

“On top of having to cover for a missing crewmate? Do you even realize how much work you'll be doing?” Matt pressed. So Shiro was obviously kind of smart, but he still got the feeling he wasn't taking this seriously enough. Did he just not realize he wouldn't be able to wing his way through this stuff?

“Everyone back home always yelled at me for the same thing, but I honestly kind of prefer it this way. I feel more focused when I have more to work on, and I think it brings greater rewards, in the end. I like the sense of accomplishment,” Shiro explained with a shrug.

“So… you're actually just some weird workaholic?” Matt thought out loud.

“..... Thanks for that,” Shiro responded, laughing. “What about you? People have been saying you're taking as many advanced science classes as you can.”

“So what if I am?”

“So, nothing. I think that's kind of cool, actually,” Shiro responded.

“You…. do?” Matt asked in surprise. That… was definitely the first time he'd heard that word used to describe his study habits. This guy was _definitely_ weird.

“Absolutely,” he answered seriously. “I admire people who're passionate about what they do.”

“But you're not too into the science part yourself, I take it,” Matt observed.

“Mostly just physics because it's the most practical for what I'm doing. But it'd be boring if we were both good at the same things, right?”

“I…. guess? Isn't it easier to relate to people with the same interests as you?” Matt asked, frowning.

“Sure, but if we're going to be a team, it's better to have different strengths. You're stronger when you can pool your assets together, so ultimately a well-rounded group that knows how to along is going to do a lot better than one with basically the same backgrounds,” Shiro pointed out.

That was true…. Matt sighed. “You know…. I think I owe you an apology. I totally misjudged you, and I feel bad about it now. I thought you were going to be some annoying jock, but you actually seem like a pretty good guy.”

Shiro looked up from his work in surprise. “I don't mind, but can I ask what made you think that?”

“Well…. You probably don't remember me, but I was in your group for physical evaluations,” Matt explained. “I saw the competition you and some of the other guys got into, and it just….. made me mad. I guess it reminded me of the guys who used to beat me up in high school.”

“Why would they do that?” Shiro asked, frowning.

“Oh, come on, don't play stupid,” Matt reprimanded. “Small, awkward nerdy guy? I stuck out like a sore thumb.”

“... You're talking like that’s normal, and it's not.”

“Well…. it was for me.” Man…. this was starting to get a little uncomfortable. It had been going so well for a minute there, too, but he should have realized Shiro wouldn't understand where he was coming from with this. Apparently he was a lot more intelligent than Matt had given him credit for, but nobody would ever dare shove someone like _him_ in a locker.

“That's not what I meant.” Shiro closed what he was working on so that he could look at Matt directly while he spoke. “Those guys were assholes, and that kind of behavior is unacceptable. The only reason to condemn someone with skill is because you don't have any yourself.”

“.... You sound exactly like my dad. Totally the same wavelength,” Matt sighed. “I'm really sorry I looked down on you. I just… didn't want it to happen again, I guess.”

“I can understand that. But I think most people have some good in them. You just have to give them a chance to be able to show it.”

“Maybe,” Matt conceded. “You still sound like my dad, though.”

“I'll take that as a compliment,” Shiro smiled. “You should really stop worrying, though. I guarantee nobody's going to look down on you here. And if they do, they're going to have to come through me first. We're a team now, after all.”

Man… Shiro was really invested for this for some reason. He kept talking like it was a done deal, even though they hadn't so much as flown together yet. For all they knew, their combination could still prove to be a giant disaster. He guessed he'd just have to take things as they were, though, so he rested his chin in his palm.

“I suppose I can feel better knowing I have my own personal bodyguard,” he said lightly. “I hope you’re not hoping to get any money out of this, though. Whatever your fee is, I can’t afford it.”

Shiro grinned. “We'll just have to put you on a payment plan after we graduate, then. I’ll make sure to charge killer interest.”

Matt laughed. “Tough bargain, but I guess I don’t have a choice. You’ve got yourself a deal.” He stuck out a hand, and Shiro shook it earnestly. Although... “So, speaking of you beating people up, you didn’t really seem that bothered to lower your defense class level. Was that really a good idea? I mean... you’re really strong.”

“I can still get some useful experience out of it. I figured I could help coach people or something.”

“I just... I guess I should get more fit, then. I can’t really meet your level, but I feel like I should at least try to meet you halfway. If we do end up working together, I feel like I shouldn’t be holding you back.”

Shiro just shook his head. “Let’s just see what happens. If you’re serious about getting stronger, I can help, but we’ll have a lot on our plates as it is. We’re going to have to learn a lot more practical skills than everyone else, and I’m sure you’re focusing on all those science classes for a reason. If we have too many goals at once it’s probably going to fall apart, and I don’t want that.”

“Yeah,” Matt agreed. “I was honestly a little reluctant to agree to this, but... I feel like the more I talk to you, the more I actually want it to work out. I know that’s kinda weird since we just met and all, but...” he shrugged.

There was just something about this guy. The way he carried himself, the way he spoke. At first, Matt thought he wasn’t taking anything seriously, but he was slowly realizing that Shiro was _very_ serious, and it was more that he was just _that_ confident, that he believed that he could do anything he wanted if he gave it enough effort. And there was an air to him that made Matt wonder if he might actually be right. He was starting to feel like he might honestly be able to get farther if he stuck with this guy, which was .... strange, considering he’d hated his guts only hours earlier, but that was more on him than Shiro.

Maybe this would end up working after all.


End file.
